With the economic development of the Beibu Gulf economic zone, environmental problems, such as seawater intrusion, vegetation degradation, and desertification in the coastal areas have become more important and pose a serious threat to regional ecological security. The low ecosystem services value has become one of the key factors restricting the rapid economic development of the Beibu Gulf area. Evaluating the ecosystem service value of the Beibu Gulf coastal areas, demonstrating its evolution characteristics, and analyzing the main driving factors are of great significance when attempting to promote the ecological construction and sustainable development of this area. Landsat remote sensing images in 1999, 2006, and 2014 of the study area were the main data source. First, we used the supervised classification and thematic mapping approach to interpret the remote sensing images and obtain the land use/cover distribution maps. Then we analyzed the land use/cover dynamics and the landscape pattern evolution characteristics. We used the improved evaluation method for ecosystem service value based on per unit area to calculate the ecosystem service values in the study area for the three periods. We also analyzed the value changes and the spatio-temporal characteristics for each ecosystem service in every county. Finally, the driving mechanism behind the ecosystem evolution in the Beibu Gulf coastal areas was studied by combining population factors, economic factors, and tourism factors. The land use/cover changes showed that the scattered urban expansion caused the built-up land to increase dramatically and its fragmentation became more serious between 1999 and 2014. The destruction of the ecological environment damaged the mangrove forest. However, this damaged patch has disappeared and the degree of fragmentation has improved. The forestland and orchard areas increased between 1999 and 2006, but then decreased from 2006 to 2014, while the area of cultivated land decreased sharply between 1999 and 2014. The results of the ecosystem services assessment showed that the total value of the ecosystem services in the Beibu Gulf coastal areas increased over the whole study period, and reached about 54 million in 2014. The total value of the ecosystem services provided by the forest ecosystem was the highest, and accounted for 50% of the total value of the study area. In addition, 11 ecosystem service values were analyzed. The food production, gas regulation, and nutrient cycling service values decreased from 1999 to 2014, but other ecosystem service types showed an increasing trend. The results of driving mechanism analysis showed that the comprehensive urbanization rate (%) was an important driving factor behind the changes to the ecosystem service values in the Beibu Gulf coastal areas. However, the comprehensive urbanization rate in our study, which is equal to the proportion of the urban population to the total population, is a population structure index. Therefore, the regression models and comprehensive urbanization could reflect the regional economic structure, and that ecosystem services are closely related to social and economic development. This means that the reasonable regulation of economic structure can effectively enhance the value of regional ecosystem services.